For stoner metal to have any kind of hold on me today, it has to have something unique, something to set it apart from the hordes of bands that are making music in the style. As Vokonis’s “Grasping Time” played in my ears for the first time, I was desperate…

It takes all of about .01 seconds to deduce that We Hunt Buffalo are riff purveyors of the big, fat and ugly tonal variety. With a name like that, you can’t go around peddling post-punk or tinny garage rock. It’s basically Stoner Metal 101 that bands named after huge, heavy…

There are a few topics which we keep hammering at here at Heavy Blog, whether through the text of our posts, the musical selection which we make, on “external” channels like the podcast, and more. One of them is that music, whether we like it or not, is a business.…

Even a cursory glance of our biweekly playlist updates will reveal that there is a great deal of variety among our staff’s musical tastes. Due to this, we brainstormed the idea of Playlist Swap, where two of our contributors pick their favorite track from each of the nine albums in their grid…

Last year, Polish trio stoner doom trio Spaceslug coughed up two worthwhile slabs of psychedelic and forward-thinking beefiness. They are great albums, but more importantly, they cemented the group’s distinct identity. They aren’t quite your daddy’s bloodshot-eyed stoner metal dirtbags, nor do they strive to achieve soul-crushing gloom via monolithic…

When will the bad premiere post titles stop, you ask? Never! Honestly, naming these posts is a nightmare so falling back on puns and silly double entendres is all we have, give us a break. OK, on to the matter at hand which is Cavern’s excellent brand of stoner-tinged post metal. This Oakland based duo seems to have learned the adage of “less is more” since their release in 2015, stripping back their sound to the bare necessities. The result is a type of post metal that seeps urgency and immediacy, no note out of place and no transition unnecessary. This lends them a kind of instrumental flow which lends them in the category of bands like Russian Circles and set and setting but also with Elder and their ilk. How so? Check out “Eater” below, the title track from their upcoming EP!

It’s really not fair to other record labels that Holy Roar Records exists. While Matt has been the main voice of our adoration for them on Heavy Blog, there are plenty more of us that are just in awe with the work they’ve been doing. Not only do they have an excellent roster but they also drip with style, professionalism and the willingness to deviate from what you’d normally expect to come out of their releases. To such an exception we turn our eyes today in this, the third of my contributions to our ongoing series checking in with the label. This time around, we have Garganjua, a band whose comparison to Pallbearer is immediate and somewhat shallow, as they add much to the formula of “emotional doom” espoused by Pallbearer’s meteoric rise to fame.

Being an up and coming doom band in the UK is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the arguable home of doom metal seems like the blessed and fertile ground to begin conjuring the magic of slow and low, with the immense history and a nearly overwhelming…

We often rail against gimmicks here on Heavy Blog. That’s no coincidence; in its endless search for boundaries to push, metal will often grab whatever is closest to hand. However, it rarely takes the time to integrate whatever that crutch is into its composition and thus you get a gimmick, a once off or shallow use of something which could be cool and interested. Grayceon are a great example of how to avoid that. They splice their brand of stoner/doom metal with cello, baking it right into the composition. What could have easily been just another stoner metal band with a few string touches here and there turns into an album which utilizes its non-standard instruments in a varied and impressive way, adding it where necessary to amplify the core music and its impact.

It is our tendency to wear things out, especially music, that, in part, gives our community so much life. For example, I’ve listened to Elder so many times since Reflections From a Floating World came out that I need a break. I’m driven then to search for the same kind of sound but done a bit differently, someone that isn’t Elder but that can scratch that same itch. A high bar indeed! Luckily, my network reaches far and I’m sent albums all of the time, one of which (all the way from Poland) was Weedpecker’s III, a wonderful and expansive exploration of 70’s influenced stoner rock that lives in the same spaces as Elder. Now I’m here to repay the favor and tell you to listen to it; see you below for more!